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When the Ebola outbreak began March it started in Guinea and soon spread to neighboring Liberia and Sierra Leone overwhelming hospital systems there. Monrovia has American boots on the ground, Sierra Leone is leaning heavily on her colonial mistress Britain as well as Cuban doctors, but Guinea has received minimal attention.

Of the nearly 9,000 cases, Guinea has had the smallest amount, at 1,472. Yet it needs just as much help as its neighbors. Guinea, which is ground zero of this outbreak, is now the one country with the least amount of resources or even attention.

This week Doctors Without Borders or Medecins San Frontieres (MSF) warned that Guinea’s capital Conakry is seeing “a massive spike in cases.” The president of Guinea, where 843 people have died, has just begged retired doctors to come back and assist in the treatment effort.

When I first visited Conakry in 1999 to report on the funeral of Amadou Diallo, the unarmed Bronx resident shot 41 times by New York City cops who mistook his wallet for gun, I saw firsthand how beautiful, but impoverished the entire country was.

Even though Guinea’s bauxite exports ought to make among the richest nations on the continent, it was lacking basic infrastructure. The major city seemed like a very small town in any other country in the region.

From Conakry to the Fouta Djallon mountains, France’s colonial legacy was visible everywhere.

Yet in 2014 the French government has not given the commitment that Britain has given to Sierra Leone in the Ebola fight.

The healthcare system is still crumbling.

“It’s still the same or even worse now,” Diallo’s mother, Kadiatou Diallo told me Thursday.

“We don’t have any good hospital in Guinea, we have no infrastructure. Trust me Guinea is the worst (of the three countries healthcare systems).” The Maryland resident has been working with others in the diaspora to bring democratic principles to Guinea under the umbrella group Pottal Fii Bhantal, but also to build a world-class hospital in Conakry.

“One good hospital built in Guinea with solar power would go a long way. Even if someone wants a test they have to send it elsewhere. One good hospital will be a good start,” Diallo added.

Of course the few Guinean elite can fly to Paris or Morocco for their check-ups. The rest of the 10 million folks are the mercy of the government hospitals, which may not always have running water.

While the US military handles logistics and builds treatment centers in Monrovia, Diallo and others who form part of the Justice in Guinea group wish that was also the case in Conakry.

President Barack Obama has leaned on France’s president, Francois Hollande to step up.

“This is not simply charity,” the president. “Probably the single most important thing that we can do to prevent a more serious Ebola outbreak in this country is making sure that we get what is a raging epidemic right now in West Africa under control.”

It appears that Obama frustration with France is now public knowledge despite the administration’s refusal to ‘name and shame.’

But some Guineans in the US have not refused to name and shame pointing to their own leadership for failing them.

“The Guinean government has shown the worst leadership. The outbreak started in Guinea and they don’t know how to handle it,” said Bashir Bah, 60, a computer engineer who now makes Washington DC his home.

He says the reason the Guinea is lagging behind its neighbors is because President Conde, let go of qualified healthcare workers when he took over as president in 2010 in favor of cronies. “When Alpha Conde got into power one of the first measures was to total purge the health care staff and all the cronies took over. That’s the fundamental explanation. The root cause is ethnic,” Bah said.

Conde is from the Malinke ethnic group and they are about 35% of the population. He’s been accused of sidelining other ethnic groups including the Peul who comprise 40% of the Guineans.

MSF is building two new treatment centers with one in Conakry to tackle the influx of new Ebola cases after months of instability.

The Atlanta based Humes-McCoy Aviation will fly medical personnel to and from the region for aid groups who want it. They will do it at no cost as long as fuel is paid for.

Guineans in America will join other West African groups to hold a fundraising concert next month to raise funds for the hospital when every one leaves eventually.

And after Obama’s push, the French government said it would kick in some funds to build two treatment centers, but not before implementing stringent temperature checks from travellers jetting in from Conakry at its airport.

The year is barely halfway through and it is turning out to be an annus horribilis for Ghana’s president, John Dramani Mahama. It seems everything he touches turns to cow dung.

Ghanaians are experiencing untold financial hardships at a time when a president a year from the next election should be rolling out new initiatives to soothe the masses. At least that’s how it often works in many places in West Africa.

But Mahama’s government is accused by many here of living beyond its means and plunging the government into more and more borrowing to stay afloat.

To stop the dollarization of the economy brought about by little confidence in the local currency, the Ghana cedi, his team put in place reforms that include not allowing pricing in dollars and permitting holders of dollar accounts to only withdraw their funds in cedis.

The reaction to that has been a drastic 25% drop in the value of the cedi to the dollar. The falling cedi, currently at about 3 cedis to $1, has resulted in price increases for all and sundry. Increases in the cost of living and a currency losing value are enough to stoke discontent among a populace who loved Mahama when he was vice president under the late John Atta Mills.

But then Mills died in 2012 and Mahama was elevated to the top job. And as president he has brought in his own team. And he and his team have to govern.

With his well-written memoir (My First Coup D’état) many people expected more from him. But his policies and cabinet reshuffling elicit yawns. The problems seem to be worsening.

The genial but “accidental” president, also the chairman of the regional bloc, summoned his counterparts to Accra to tackle the issue of Islamic militancy in Mali and Nigeria earlier this month.

They came. They tied up traffic—forcing Accra residents to be trapped in roads for hours—and then they left with nothing to show but a communiqué.

No troops, no drones, no nothing.

All this and an increase in power cuts like Accra hasn’t seen in years.

The “Light on light off” phrase so pervades the vernacular because not a day has gone by in months without electricity being cut.

But for the FIFA world cup in Brazil, particularly during Ghana’s matches, Mahama and his team decided to give the roughly 25 million citizens uninterrupted power supply. Ghana can’t produce enough power so Cote d’Ivoire, its neighbor, agreed to pump in 50 megawatts, since their games don’t overlap.

“These plans are put in place for consumers to watch uninterruptible football matches during the World Cup,” the Public Utilities Regulatory Commission said in a statement to Bloomberg News. “Within these arrangements the load-shedding schedule, though varied, still exists.”

Before the first match Ghana played, which was against the United States, Mahama was on the airwaves encouraging his soccer-fanatic nation to wave flags and show love for the Black Stars who had beaten the US in the past two World cups.

Ghana’s team was about “skill and talent,” the president said, joining the national frenzy here.

Well, the lights didn’t go out and the carnival atmosphere on the streets lasted for hours.

Until the Black Stars lost to the US 2-1.

Mahama has now failed to deliver a sure-thing soccer victory against America like his predecessors. His political rivals are smelling blood. At least the power was on for the night.

Like US president Barack Obama, Nigerian leader Goodluck Jonathan gave people hope.

After all, the story goes, he was the son of canoe makers who grew up without shoes in the Niger Delta area but lifted himself out of poverty through education.

Not just a university degree, but a PhD. He became a symbol that, no matter the circumstances of birth in Africa’s most populous country, one could rise to the highest levels of political success: the Aso Rock villa. That’s Nigeria’s “White House.”

Yet there were elements of luck too. Jonathan was twice a running mate who was elevated because his principals could not serve out their terms. As vice president, he kept a low profile but then his boss died in office, elevating him to the top job.

The tale of a poor man, not part of any political dynasty who rose to be president by the dint of his hard work and strokes of luck, played well in 2010.

Then it was time to govern. To deliver on promises made.

But things never seemed to get better for the average Nigerian, despite the booming oil-rich economy.

Back then, he promised to stabilize electricity in Nigeria—but the country still remains in darkness most nights and every citizen who can afford to buys a generator. Power cuts last for hours on end.

In early 2012, the president removed the subsidies that made it affordable for the Nigerian Everyman to buy gas for their cars and portable generators. Nationwide #Occupy Nigeria demonstrations paralyzed the country for five days.

A year later, he told CNN (to the bewilderment of many Nigerians) that should one inquire about the power situation, ordinary folks would agree that he had made great strides. His government had “kept faith.”

Was he completely out-of-touch? Hand he not been outside the presidential villa in any city at nighttime? Or had he simply morphed into a quintessential say-anything politician? The facts be damned?

Yet the reality was Nigeria was sliding backwards and his inner circle appeared to either shield him from that or simply not care.

Today the CIA World Factbook points out that 62% of Nigeria’s 170 million people live in extreme poverty. Seventy percent are below the poverty line. Government revenues are $23 billion-plus annually.

His cabinet members showcase excessive displays of wealth (likely from taxpayer coffers) such as buying armored BMWs and hiring private jets. Yet it is impossible for him to find fault or discipline them.

But when central banker Lamido Sanusi sounded the alarms bells that $50 billion is, well, missing from government accounts; he gets fired.

For Jonathan, the optics are rarely good and embarrassment isn’t even in the equation. And after months of unanswered questions, unwittingly, turns the matter into a joke.

He careened from crisis to crisis, but instead of solving problems, Nigerians have a leader who seems consumed with reelection in 2015.

Thus, he began the year pandering.

First to the religious right; he offered a draconian criminalization of citizens who are sexual minorities and anyone who has any association with them.

Then he fast-tracked the construction a new bridge over the River Niger, which residents have sought for decades as the current one is old and in disrepair.

Yet at the same time he backed criminalizing gays and made promises to deliver on infrastructure.

The reality: Highways remain dilapidated, airports continue to resemble crumbling abandoned edifices, and one job vacancy elicits thousands of applicants. Universities remain in shambles. And millions scrape by eking out a living that places them among the world’s poorest despite the nation’s wealth.

What happened to the promise and hope of leadership from Jonathan?

Much of Nigeria’s success stories—and there are many—are derived from the private sector and with the $510 billion economy now Africa’s largest. But still money is concentrated in the hands of the few while millions are mired in poverty. For all its growth and revenues, Jonathan’s government has no Emirates-style infrastructure achievements to show. Money has simply vanished.

It is against this backdrop that the terror group Boko Haram has been escalating its war on the Nigerian government. Northern Nigeria remains extremely poor. It is fertile ground for Boko Haram’s message: They claim western education is forbidden and say they want an Islamic state with strict adherence to the Koran.

Then he seemed to shrug his shoulders and hope for the best. His attitude can, at best, be described as ineptitude—namely by not heeding the warnings that girls would be abducted after terrorists slaughtered young boys in another school a few months ago.

On April 14, members of the Boko Haram stormed a boarding school in Chibok, Bornu state, and took hundreds of girls by lorry into the dense forests near the country’s border with Chad.

Only after finally fed-up Nigerians pushed the world to intervene by simply saying #BringBackOurGirls online and in demonstrations around the world … finally Jonathan broke his weeks-old silence.

Only then did his finance minister, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, who spends considerable effort telling—some would say bamboozling—western press how wonderful her efforts have been in turning the economy around, decide the girls were worth mentioning.

The minister under who is coordinating Africa’s Davos, the current World Economic Forum for the continent, has been known to tell journalists how she could be earning a fat paycheck at the World Bank but she’s instead she’s doing the hard work in Nigeria with her boss, Jonathan.

Before flying to New York last week to get an accolade from Time magazine, she rattled off to journalists plans for the 6,000 military personnel to protect world leaders and Fortune 500 representatives in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital, this week for the summit.

But of course there was no mention of the missing girls.

Only after the outcry of the ordinary people, with their supporters on Twitter around the world, did she now claim that she and president can’t sleep at night out of worry. (The optics are never good for these folks.)

And it is backfiring as international press now think of him as ineffective and leading a corrupt bunch.

Only after the outcry did Jonathan’s wife, Patience, display what seemed to be crocodile tears on national television. Then she promptly berated activists and women for demonstrating against her husband’s administration.

The writer Teju Cole, rightly dubbed her ‘The First Lady of Surrealistan.”

How is it possible that a government can only respond to such heinous crimes only after pressure from the outside world?

Would he have been so slow to act or even convey sympathy and empathy were these girls his daughters, his friends’ daughters, or children of the elite?

Time is running out for Jonathan to be an agent of change. He still has time to lead from the front, not behind. He still has time put people first—not just business interests to ensure he gets another term.

Once again, the president could actually take a page from Obama’s book. With elections looming in 2012, Hurricane Sandy struck and Obama and his team were all hands on deck. The election took care of itself.

If only Jonathan and his team would do the same. And act like they care? Maybe do something bold.